The state Department of Education isn’t saying yet. But COVID-19′s outsize impact on education might soon extend to New Jersey’s standardized tests, already a controversial issue.

“The decision has not been made,” Gov. Phil Murphy said Sunday in his daily coronavirus update. “I guess we’ll have an answer for you in the next day or two.”

New Jersey students take their annual math and English tests on computers, so it’s not possible to do state testing from home, said Mike Yaple, a spokesman for the Department of Education.

Even if schools reopen later this spring, students will have missed weeks of classroom instruction. The worksheets and online assignments schools gave students to do from home are no match for in-person instruction, administrators have said.

With exams scheduled for late April in many districts, the next step is obvious, the state’s largest teachers union said.

“Testing should be canceled for the year, given the massive disruption to the school year,” said Steve Baker, spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association.

Federal law requires schools to test students in grades 3-8 in English and math every year and test students at least once in high school under normal circumstances. New Jersey law also requires high school students to pass an exit exam to prove they are ready to graduate.

But others states, including Pennsylvania and New York, announced last week they would cancel exams. On Friday, the Trump administration said it would grant waivers to any state unable to test students because of the pandemic.

“Neither students nor teachers need to be focused on high-stakes tests during this difficult time,” U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said. “Students are simply too unlikely to be able to perform their best in this environment.”

If students do return to the classroom this school year, the state would likely hear arguments both for and against testing students, said David Hespe, a former state education commissioner under Gov. Chris Christie.

Proponents of testing might argue the state should assess how students have been hurt by the missed class time, Hespe said. But others would argue that any time with teachers should be spent making up for lost class periods, he said.

Testing students instead of helping them catch up on what they missed would be “absurd," Baker said.

“That is completely wishful thinking that you would get useful data out of testing students on materials they haven’t even had the opportunity to be taught,” he said.

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